Acts 8:9-25
Simon the Sorcerer
9 Now for some time a man named Simon had practiced sorcery in the city and amazed all the people of Samaria. He boasted that he was someone great, 10 and all the people, both high and low, gave him their attention and exclaimed, “This man is rightly called the Great Power of God.” 11 They followed him because he had amazed them for a long time with his sorcery. 12 But when they believed Philip as he proclaimed the good news of the kingdom of God and the name of Jesus Christ, they were baptized, both men and women. 13 Simon himself believed and was baptized. And he followed Philip everywhere, astonished by the great signs and miracles he saw.
14 When the apostles in Jerusalem heard that Samaria had accepted the word of God, they sent Peter and John to Samaria. 15 When they arrived, they prayed for the new believers there that they might receive the Holy Spirit, 16 because the Holy Spirit had not yet come on any of them; they had simply been baptized in the name of the Lord Jesus. 17 Then Peter and John placed their hands on them, and they received the Holy Spirit.
18 When Simon saw that the Spirit was given at the laying on of the apostles’ hands, he offered them money 19 and said, “Give me also this ability so that everyone on whom I lay my hands may receive the Holy Spirit.”
20 Peter answered: “May your money perish with you, because you thought you could buy the gift of God with money! 21 You have no part or share in this ministry, because your heart is not right before God. 22 Repent of this wickedness and pray to the Lord in the hope that he may forgive you for having such a thought in your heart. 23 For I see that you are full of bitterness and captive to sin.”
24 Then Simon answered, “Pray to the Lord for me so that nothing you have said may happen to me.”
25 After they had further proclaimed the word of the Lord and testified about Jesus, Peter and John returned to Jerusalem, preaching the gospel in many Samaritan villages.
This morning I want to talk to you about something that I think is very important in our Christian walk, it’s important for us in life in general…..it’s important in our spiritual life. The story that we have read this morning about Simon, this man who stands out because of what he did before he accepted Jesus as Savior, his story I believe is here for us for a reason….let’s let the Holy Spirit direct our thoughts this morning as we investigate God’s Word.
The First thing this morning that I want us to get our minds around is this:
1. Accepting Christ as Savior means there is a CHANGE IN COMMAND.
Read v. 9-11 9 Now for some time a man named Simon had practiced sorcery in the city and amazed all the people of Samaria. He boasted that he was someone great, 10 and all the people, both high and low, gave him their attention and exclaimed, “This man is rightly called the Great Power of God.” 11 They followed him because he had amazed them for a long time with his sorcery.
We need to understand that this Simon has been running the show for quite some time, he has had the people’s attention, their applause, he has had a power over them, because of his sorcery…which only can be demonic in nature. Simon was used to being in charge, making the rules…doing as he pleased basically.
Can I ask you a serious question? Well, I’m going to anyway. Before you became a Christian, isn’t that pretty well how you lived your life?
*Living for yourself
*Attempting to try to control and have power over other people
*Using other people for your benefit
*Living by your own rules
You might not see your life before Christ like that, but life without Christ in it is pretty easy to nail down….you can be a moral person, but when you get to the heart of it, life without Christ is centered on Self…there is a self-centeredness there that drives the non-Christian…basically because that is the condition of every man… we call it the carnal nature, this nature that looks out for self first.
Simon was in command. Before Christ, we perceive ourselves as being in command of our own lives, our own choices….trying to exercise our rights.
I hope you can remember the time, the day, the moment when you made a Choice, to Accept Jesus Christ into your Heart, and by Faith declare Him the Lord of your Life….Lord and Savior. When we Accept Jesus there are some dramatic changes that take place in our Life…Heart…and Mind. What are they?
The first has to do with our past….what brings most of us to a place where we turn to Jesus are the things in our past that we want to be forgiven for…our sins. The Bible makes it clear, we have all sinned and need forgiveness. So when we call upon the Name of Jesus and ask Him to forgive us of all our sins….that’s exactly what happens….God the Father, see’s your faith, your choice to accept Jesus and His Sacrifice on the Cross….and God blots out your sins…all of them from your past. That is the first thing.
The second thing that happens…As we accept Jesus Christ and His Sacrifice, we also are asking Him to be our Lord and Savior…so we are giving up control…we call it surrender. We die to ourselves and our own way of thinking and we invite God, through the Holy Spirit to come into our lives and help us to live for God in every way.
This is important. I think a lot of us understand and really enjoy the benefit of having our sins forgiven, but I think too many times we haven’t understood the idea of surrendering ourselves to God and allowing Him to be in charge of our lives.
Accepting Jesus Christ as Lord and Savior means a Change in Command.
I have been thinking about Simon, and the life he was living. It was evident that he had been involved in sorcery for some time….can I tell you a secret? When you are in business with the devil for very long…it will take its toll on you. Even when you are helping the devil, he is still intent on destroying you along the way, make no mistake about it.
I think when Simon heard this message of Hope, this Message of a New Life, this Message of Eternal Life with the Son of God, when he heard about the Resurrection Power of Jesus…no doubt the power of God’s Word, the Power of God’s Truth started to break through that dark power that had blinded Simon for so long….Simon saw the Truth and he wanted New Life.
Do you remember when you were desperate and God began talking to you, pulling you, calling you to come and get things right? There is a thirst there for healing…there is a thirst for the Truth that can break through any barrier…amen?
Simon made a choice…. The Second thing I want you to think about this morning is this…
2. Accepting Jesus Christ as Lord and Savior brings CHANGE IN POSITION.
12 But when they believed Philip as he proclaimed the good news of the kingdom of God and the name of Jesus Christ, they were baptized, both men and women. 13 Simon himself believed and was baptized. And he followed Philip everywhere, astonished by the great signs and miracles he saw.
We notice that Simon not only believed what he heard, but He was baptized…this was a big deal, only those who wanted to be identified with Jesus Christ to the whole community would go through with the public baptism, Simon was telling the whole community, the same community who he used to “control”, he was telling them that he was dying to himself and his old ways, and he was going to live for God, and live a Christian life. This is what baptism means….I’m identifying myself with Jesus’ death on the Cross….I go under the water, I die to the old life, the old ways…the old habits, the things that I used to glory in…I’m dying to them…for Simon, that sorcery that I used to control others and used to elevate myself in my own eyes…I’m dead to it…
You took some things under the water with you too. Those things that you used to do in your old life, those things that glorified sin, that glorified self…those things…we died to those things, they shouldn’t be a part of our lives anymore…amen? That’s what baptism means to us, it’s a statement of belief; it’s a public statement that I have died and raised a new person in Christ.
Now we come to the Crux of the story….Now we come to the place where I think many Christians are having some difficulty, and it becomes very dangerous spiritually when we come to this place and we don’t know what to do…. Let’s look at what happens…
17 Then Peter and John placed their hands on them, and they received the Holy Spirit.
18 When Simon saw that the Spirit was given at the laying on of the apostles’ hands, he offered them money 19 and said, “Give me also this ability so that everyone on whom I lay my hands may receive the Holy Spirit.”
20 Peter answered: “May your money perish with you, because you thought you could buy the gift of God with money! 21 You have no part or share in this ministry, because your heart is not right before God. 22 Repent of this wickedness and pray to the Lord in the hope that he may forgive you for having such a thought in your heart. 23 For I see that you are full of bitterness and captive to sin.”
The Third thing I want you to know this morning is this:
3. Accepting Jesus Christ as Lord and Savior is AN ALL IN OR AN ALL OUT kind of thing.
Simply, this is what I think happened, and the reason that I believe God brought me back to this scripture today is because this same thing is happening all the time in the church, and it’s keeping the church ineffective and weak because of it…
Simon, a young and ungrounded Christian to say the least. He is excited about what he is seeing, miracles, people being healed, people being filled with the Spirit…He’s amazed, but something that he died to…the idea of self promotion, this former life of dazzling the people with his own “power”, he seemed to let that creep back into his thinking, into his heart….maybe he missed the attention, whatever the reason…his focus moved from being on Christ to being on Himself.
Peter very precisely rebuked and corrected Simon for his off the mark ideas; Peter saw what was at the heart of his question.
Simon is not by himself in this sin. How many Christians find themselves in this same position?
I’ve accepted Christ and been forgiven, I really like what I’ve seen and heard…I believe it’s true…BUT…there are some things that I really miss from my past that I’m going to assimilate into my new Christian life, and I’m going to make it work. In other words, I want my forgiveness, but I just can’t die out to everything…
We have seen whole denominations move in this direction, when you say that you want to be Christian, but you don’t want to believe what the Bible says is the Truth, or God’s Word…What do you think that is? Jesus has called us to Go All IN with Him, nothing else will do. This idea that we can pick and choose what we will agree to do, and what we will dismiss as the truth is straight from Satan himself.
Are you All IN or Not?
Well, preacher…you don’t understand…drinking beer and smoking weed is just who I am, surely God knows that? Did you Die to that or Not? Are you All In or Not?
Well, preacher…your married, so you don’t probably remember what it’s like being single… my girlfriend and I we have certain needs that we can’t help, God created us to be sexual beings, so I know he’s understands….What does God’s Word say? It says sex before Marriage is a Sin. It tells us that Lust is a Sin…. Did you die to that when you were baptized? Are you All In or Not?
Simon was allowing his past to come back and take hold of his thinking….we are left to wonder what became of Simon, the last thing we hear him is him asking the apostles to pray for him, so that he will not be condemned…I think he had a choice to make….just like we do today.
I don’t know where you at today, but I do know that everyone of us is being confronted with this onslaught to compromise our Christianity for something less than Christian…. The question is before us today….Have you Surrendered to Jesus today?
Are you All In, or are you trying to play this half in, half out game. That game doesn’t work, God want’s all of you, I believe we owe it to Him, don’t you?
It’s time for your response….this is a battle that we all face, it’s something that everyone of us need to guard our hearts and minds from this attack on our Faith….Do you need to talk to the Lord today, He’s calling us this morning, He loves us and wants to hear from us.
